Monday, October 6, 2014

What does an Hospital have to do with Cricket ? …… Sri Ramachandra
Medical College and Research Institute is a deemed university operating in Porur, Chennai. Sri Ramachandra
Hospital by Mr NPV
Ramaswamy Udayar subsequently becoming a
University in 1994. The hospital became
a landmark in the outskirts of Chennai, located in a sprawling 175 acre University campus. .
The medical centre is an 8 storied building with around 692 beds, 171 Intensive
care units.

With that powerful knock of
Suresh Raina, CSK coasted to a win over KKR in the CLT20 finals. KKR missed their mystery spinner Sunil
Narine, who was barred from bowling for Kolkata Knight Riders in the final after being reported for a second time
in two matches for a suspect action. He was reported by the umpires after
Thursday's semi-final against Hobart Hurricanes, which Knight Riders won by
seven wickets. He had also been reported following their final group match,
against Dolphins, when the umpires questioned his quicker delivery. According to ESPNcricinfo, the umpires, Rod
Tucker, S Ravi and Vineet Kulkarni, had
noted in their written complaint that several of the 24 deliveries Narine
bowled against Hurricanes were suspect. "It was three deliveries in the
last match. But this time all his four overs were reported," an official
privy to the complaint said.

According to a Champions
League T20 release, the umpires reviewed footage of the semi-final and
"felt that there was a flex action in Narine's elbow beyond the acceptable
limit when bowling during the match". He had already been on the
tournament's warning list and, since he had not subsequently had his action
cleared, is now automatically banned from bowling further in the tournament. Knight
Riders will now be "advised" to send Narine to the Sri Ramachandra
University in Chennai - which has been accredited by the ICC as a testing
centre for suspect bowling actions - to have his action tested.

Darren Sammy, Narine's West
Indies team-mate, came out in support of him. Clive Lloyd, the chairman of the
West Indies selection panel, was livid and questioned the decision, highlighting that the offspinner had
bowled around the world for years without being reported. He is quoted as saying that with World Cup
coming up. It destroys the individual's ability as such and I think you may end
up destroying someone's career. " Narine
became the fourth bowler to be reported in the Champions League - the others
being Lahore Lions' Adnan Rasool and
Mohammad Hafeez, and Dolphins' Prenelan Subrayen. …… it is not all over yest ….as KKR’s part-time
bowler Suryakumar Yadav too was reported for suspect bowling action in the
finals. The charge was laid by on-field umpires Rod Tucker and Kumar Dharmasena
along with third umpire S Ravi. He bowled
3 overs concdeding 21 without taking a wicket.

Only recently, the ICC accredited
centres in Brisbane and Chennai as testing venues for suspected illegal bowling
actions. Cricket Australia's National Cricket Centre in Brisbane and the Sri
Ramachandra University in Chennai join Cardiff Metropolitan University as
testing facilities for bowlers reported in international cricket. The
accreditation comes in a year when the ICC have becoming increasingly vigilant
over bowling actions. An ICC release
said that the two centres were assessed for several factors including the
availability of "a motion analysis system with a minimum of 12 high speed
cameras capable of producing three-dimensional data", qualified personnel
to operate the system and enough indoor space for tests to be conducted. Though
the ICC announced that Brisbane facility was accredited only recently, the highest-profile bowler to be reported this
year, Pakistan offspinner Saeed Ajmal, had been sent to Brisbane for testing in
August.

Darrel Hair no balls Murali (Photo credit : smh.com.au)

In Sydney Morning Herald, former spinner Ashley Mallet had written a scathing
attack supporting Darrel Hair. Pakistan's
Saeed Ajmal was recently tested by the accredited team of human movement
specialists at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane and their analysis found
that all of Ajmal's deliveries far exceeded the 15-degree level of tolerance.
In fact, some of his deliveries were more than double the tolerated degree of
flex. Ajmal's action has been pretty much the same from the day he first set
foot on the Test stage. He's taken a hefty 178 wickets in just 35 Tests at an
average of 28.10. Should he be stripped of all those wickets? In a just cricket
world, that would happen. Ajmal's chucking should have been pulled up long ago,
but the authorities turned a blind eye.

“There appears to be a new vigour and will within
the ICC to stamp out throwing, but the best way to gather evidence will come to
pass when we get the technology to test all bowlers under playing conditions. When
that day comes, I suspect we will have a whole bunch of so-called elite
off-spinners announcing their retirement. All cricket followers want the
umpires to clamp down on chucking. Cricket Australia could do no better than
bringing in Hair to advise umpires. Hair was fearless in his dealings with
bowlers with suspect actions. Hopefully our umpires are prepared to take on the
chuckers Down Under this summer.” – wrote Ashley Mallett who played 38 Tests taking 132 wickets.

It would also be fair to recall what Muttiah Muralitharan wrote in The
Age in 2004 - when he claimed that three
of Australia's leading pacemen were bowling with illegal actions. It was Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie who according to Murali were flexing their arms beyond the legal limit. Under the applicable laws, fast bowlers may
flex their arms by 10 degrees just before delivery. Murali had asked - "McGrath is bowling
about 13 (degrees), Gillespie about 12 and Brett Lee about 14 or 15, so what
about them then, the Australian players?" . Murali expressed that he had been subject to
unfair scrutiny throughout his career because other cricket nations were jealous
of his achievements.

After much water flowed
down, Darren Lehmann played a master stroke in bringing in Murali to bowl to
and advise Aussie batsmen before the two-Test campaign against Pakistan on
spin-friendly wickets in the United Arab Emirates. To conclude, it was way back in 1963-64 Series
that Australian fast bowler Ian Meckiff was called for throwing by umpire Col
Egar. Egar had no response to Meckiff's first ball but then shattered the
convivial atmosphere of a sun-drenched Saturday afternoon by calling no ball to
the second, third, fifth and ninth deliveries.
He reportedly later privately claimed that eight of Meckiff's 12 balls
were illegal "but if I had called them all he would never have finished
the over". With the crowd in uproar, Richie Benaud, captaining Australia
for the last time, told Meckiff he was not prepared to bowl him again. Left-armer
Meckiff never played the game again.